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Boycott as an Act of Moral Resistance: The Case for Boycotting Israel
Faced with overwhelming Israeli oppression, Palestinians under occupation, in refugee camps and in the heart of Israel's distinct form of apartheid have increasingly reached out to the world for understanding, for compassion, and, more importantly, for solidarity.
Boycott as an Act of Moral Resistance
The Case for Boycotting Israel
By OMAR BARGHOUTI
"Where is the world? Is it dead?" exclaimed the bereaved mother in Rafah on Al-Jazeera. Before her, lied the lifeless body of her little child.
Faced with overwhelming Israeli oppression, Palestinians under occupation, in refugee camps and in the heart of Israel's distinct form of apartheid have increasingly reached out to the world for understanding, for compassion, and, more importantly, for solidarity. Palestinians do not beg for sympathy. We deeply resent patronization, for we are no longer a nation of hapless victims. We are resisting racial and colonial oppression, aspiring to attain justice and genuine peace. Above all, we are struggling for the universal principle of equal humanity.
But we cannot do it alone. We need international support.
The question of Palestine was created by the world -- mostly the western part of it -- and it is the world that must rise to its moral responsibility to resolve it. The renowned French philosopher Etienne Balibar captures this exceptional feature saying that the Palestinian cause is a "universal" one because "it is a test for the recognition of right, and the implementation of international law."[1] Indeed, in few other causes in modern history has the fundamental primacy of the rule of law and moral principles been put to such a fatal challenge.
Given its uncontested military superiority, the unquestioning and all-embracing support it enjoys from the world's only empire and the lack of political will by Arab and European states to hold it in check, Israel has been gravely violating international law, with audacious impunity, showing little if any consideration for the UN or world public opinion. Only consistent, systematic and broad international pressures can help end Israel's oppression and injustice, through ascertaining its status as a pariah state.
This article focuses on the ethical dimension of boycott, a tactic which I regard not only as a justified form of international intervention, but an imperative one as well. More specifically, academic and cultural boycott is examined, due to its evidently controversial nature.
The Palestinian call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel [2] is specifically premised upon Israel's systematic and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people which takes three basic forms:
First: Israel's rejection of the Palestinian refugees' right of return to their lands and properties, as stipulated in international law, and denying any responsibility for the Nakba -- the massive dispossession and ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by Zionists around 1948, transforming close to 800,000 Palestinians into refugees. A virtual consensus exists among Israelis, including academics and other intellectuals, on rejecting the legally and morally binding rights of Palestinian refugees.[3]
The most peculiar dimension in the popular and academic Israeli discourses on the creation of the state is substituting the concept of "independence" for colonization and birth for destruction. Even committed "leftists" often grieve over the loss of Israel's "moral superiority" after occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, as if prior to that Israel were as civil, legitimate and law-abiding as Finland! Ironically, while stubbornly rejecting Palestinian refugee rights, Israeli academics have played a central role in the massive campaigns demanding, and often winning, restitution, repatriation and compensation rights for Jewish refugees of the World War II era.
Second: the Military colonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, with all what it entails in land expropriations, house demolitions, indiscriminate killings, and, most ominously, the colonial wall -- declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July of this year -- which serves to facilitate Israel's unremitting land grab and gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.[4] Israeli universities -- all government controlled -- have not only been complicit in planning, maintaining and furnishing the justification for various aspects of the occupation, but have also directly participated in acts of colonization. Besides the voluminous record of individual acts of collusion by Israeli academics, the academic institutions themselves have never refrained from committing colonial crimes themselves.
The Hebrew University has been slowly but consistently expropriating lands and expelling their Palestinian owners in occupied East Jerusalem.
Tel Aviv University (TAU) refuses to date to acknowledge the fact that it sits on top of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village.[5] Some of TAU's departments are also organically linked to the military and intelligence establishment.
Bar Ilan University not only operates a campus on the illegal colony of Ariel near Nablus, but has also awarded Ariel Sharon an honorary doctorate for his role in the March 2002 reoccupation of Palestinian cities, which witnessed atrocities in Jenin and Nablus as well as wanton destruction and indiscriminate killings in all the major Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West bank.
Ben Gurion University has supported in various ways the slow ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev or has witnessed in condemning silence the decades-old policy of racial discrimination prevailing there. In one glaring example, its scholars conducted from 1995 to 2000 a confidential study [6] commissioned by the Health Ministry on the high incidence rate of severe birth defects and cancer among Palestinian Bedouins living near a polluting Israeli industrial site. Although the researchers established a clear correlation between the industrial pollutants and the mortality rate of the Palestinian citizens in the area -- "65% higher than among equivalent communities in Israel" -- as well as their cancer rate -- "double the national average" -- the findings were kept secret in accordance with the academics' agreement with the ministry. It was only recently leaked to the press, by chance.
Haifa University boasts one of the most racist academics in Israel: Prof. Arnon Sofer, the infamous "prophet of the Arab demographic threat," who relentlessly and influentially provides academic justification for ethnically cleansing Palestinians -- including citizens of Israel -- in innovative shapes and forms.[7] Moreover, the University has itself sponsored a wide campaign attempting to cover up a Zionist massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura, near Haifa, during the Nakba, and went through motions to fire, discredit or silence Prof. Ilan Pappe and one of his students for daring to reveal the facts about this massacre.
It is perhaps common knowledge now that the Palestinians have suffered grave human losses due to Israel's 37-year-old occupation. But what seems to escape the mainstream opinion makers is that during the current intifada, the Israeli army has crossed many of its former red lines, committing crimes that are reminiscent in form -- though certainly not in scale -- of Nazi crimes against European Jews, as British MP Oona King had once stated.[8] And the Israeli army accurately represents and is supported by Israeli society at large, mainly due to the fact that the IDF is still, relatively speaking, a people's army.[9]
From forcing a Palestinian violinist to play at a military roadblock near Nablus [10], to executing a 13-year-old refugee girl in Rafah in cold blood,[11] to engraving the Star of David on the arms of teenage Palestinian boys, to inscribing ID numbers on the foreheads and forearms of Palestinians, young and old,[12] Israel has acted with nauseating criminality and shocking impunity. Despite all this, Israeli academics and intellectuals who have explicitly called for an end to the occupation have remained in a depressingly tiny minority. Moreover, no Israeli academic body or professional union has to date publicly called for an end to occupation and the other forms of Israeli oppression. If this does not define complicity, what does?
Third: The third form of Israeli oppression is hardly ever mentioned in the western media or in academia: the system of racial discrimination against Palestinian-Arabs [13] who are officially "citizens" of Israel, a state which categorically precludes them from its self-definition and severely punishes them when they eventually shout "j'accuse!". The entire state apparatus, including the education system, is designed to keep Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel disempowered, largely dispossessed and lacking equal status in the laws and practices of the state. Moreover, despite being the natives, the indigenous population of the land, or perhaps because of it, they are increasingly being viewed by the Israeli Jewish settler majority as unwanted, or, worse, as a demographic threat that ought to be dealt with, resolutely. Polls have steadily shown that a solid majority of two thirds of all Israeli Jews supports "encouraging the Arabs to leave" by various means.[14]
In every vital aspect of life, from land ownership to access to higher education and jobs, Israel has for been practicing its own form of apartheid for 56 years. Of all the areas of racial discrimination, education stands out. A ground-breaking Human Rights Watch study published in 2001 concludes:
"The hurdles Palestinian Arab students face from kindergarten to university function like a series of sieves with sequentially finer holes. At each stage, the education system filters out a higher proportion of Palestinian Arab students than Jewish students. . And Israel's courts have yet to use laws or more general principles of equality to protect Palestinian Arab children from discrimination in education." [15]
Despite the above, I agree with those who argue that Israel is not identical to South Africa; that it is more complex, more multi-dimensional and even more sinister, in some respect. But, no matter how we define Israel, the fundamental and undisputed existence in it of a system of racial discrimination based on religious/ethnic identity is what motivates calls for South Africa-like sanctions against Israel. "Apartheid," "Zionist settler-colonialism," "Jewish supremacy," ...etc. are all variations on the name of the ailment. What matters is how best to cure it. Taking into consideration all 3 dimensions of Israel's oppression mentioned above, it can be concluded that a sufficient family resemblance between Israel and South Africa exists to grant advocating South Africa style remedies.
Main Arguments Against Boycott I
Some distinguished supporters of the Palestinian cause [16] have argued against applying South-Africa style sanctions and boycotts to Israel for various reasons, most significant of which are:
(A) The Holocaust's memory makes calls for boycotting Israel widely detested and prohibitively unpopular.
(B) Israel is essentially a democratic country with a vibrant civil society, and therefore it can be convinced to end its oppression without sanctions.
(C) Unlike in South Africa during apartheid, the majority in Israel is opposed to sanctions.
(D) Israeli academics are largely progressive and at the vanguard of the peace movement, and therefore they must be supported not boycotted.
Counter Arguments I
(A) As Etienne Balibar says, "Israel should not be allowed to instrumentalize the genocide of European Jews to put [itself] above the law of nations."[17] Beyond that, by turning a blind eye to Israel's oppression, as the U.S. and most of official Europe often do, the west has in fact perpetuated the misery, the human suffering and the injustice that have ensued since the Holocaust. Only the oppressed are different now; they are "the victims of the victims," as Edward Said said.
As for the unpopularity argument, recent breakthroughs in the positions of the US Presbyterian church, the Anglican church and some progressive Jewish-American organizations -- not to mention the fast spreading grassroots boycott movement in Europe -- indicate that there is an encouragingly growing acceptance of the need to boycott Israel in western countries. Those who were active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa often remind us that also they faced what seemed like insurmountable hurdles when they first started in the late 1950's.
(B) How can an ethno-religious supremacy that is also a colonial power ever qualify as a democracy? Israel may be a democracy for its Jewish citizens, but it is an apartheid for its Palestinian citizens, as argued earlier. New York University professor Tony Judt, for instance, calls Israel a "dysfunctional anachronism," categorizing it among the "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno states."[18]
(C) Of all the anti-boycott arguments, this one reflects either surprising naiveté or deliberate intellectual dishonesty. Are we to judge whether to apply sanctions on a colonial power based on the opinion of the majority in the oppressors' community? Does the oppressed community count at all?
(D) This is simply a myth propagated and maintained by Israeli academics who count themselves in the "left." The vast majority of Israeli academics serves in the army's reserve forces, and therefore directly knows of and participates in the daily crimes. Moreover, with the exception of a tiny yet crucial minority, Israeli academics are largely supportive of their state's oppression or are acquiescently silent about it.
Some infamous cases are worth mentioning here for illumination: Israel's most celebrated philosopher, Asa Kasher, provided "ethical" justification for extra-judicial killings, even when a large number of innocent civilians are deliberately killed or injured in the process.[19]
Israel's foremost military historian, Martin Van Creveld, of Hebrew University, advised the Israeli army in 2002 [20] -- in the Jerusalem regional weekly, March 1, 2004 -- to commit swift genocide against the Palestinians, explaining that, "Perhaps 5.000 or 10.000 killed won't be enough, and then we will have to kill more." He concludes by saying, "it is better that there be one massive crime, after which we will exit and lock the gate behind us." Like any proper peacenik, his ultimate objective remains to "exit" the occupied territories.
Benny Morris has recently argued that completely emptying Palestine of its indigenous Arab inhabitants in 1948 might have led to peace in the Middle East.[21] In response, Baruch Kimmerling, professor at Hebrew University, wrote:
"Let me extend Benny Morris's logic . If the Nazi programme for the final solution of the Jewish problem had been complete, for sure there would be peace today in Palestine."[22]
Far from being isolated examples, such explicitly racist and criminal positions are quite popular in Israel today. They are not only condoned in universities, but highly praised, judging from the prominent stature enjoyed by Kasher, Van Creveld, Benny Morris and their ilk.
Main Arguments Against Boycott II
From a slightly different perspective, some academics have argued that boycotting Israel is counterproductive and may lead to:
(1) Losing the ability to influence Israel's possible path to peace
(2) Radicalizing the Israeli right and pulling the rug from under the feet of the left
(3) Indirectly increasing the suffering of Palestinians who stand to lose financially and may even be subjected to deteriorating conditions of oppression by a wilder, more isolated Israel.
Counter Arguments II
(1) What influence? Europe hardly has any right now. Even in the U.S., the Israeliziation of US foreign policy, particularly vs. the middle east, has reached new depths, effectively tying the hands of any prospective American pressure aimed at curtailing, not to mention changing, Israel's oppressive policies. On the rare occasions when Israel did at all contemplate changing its policies, it was mainly due to facing concerted pressures by the international community.
(2) What left? Those in Israel who officially call themselves "the left" -- the Zionist left, more accurately -- easily make the far-right parties in Europe look as moral as Mother Teresa, especially when it comes to recognizing Palestinian refugees' rights. On the other hand, the morally consistent, non-Zionist left, is a very tiny group, whose members may inadvertently end up losing benefits, privileges and funding as a result of boycott. This should compel us to nuance our boycott tactics to decrease the possibility of that unnecessarily happening. But, we all know, this is not an exact science (if any science is). Rather than focusing on the error margin, we must emphasize the positive impact boycott can have on the overall academic establishment in Israel. The price that some conscientious academics may pay as an unavoidable byproduct of the boycott is quite cheap when compared to the price Palestinian academics, and indeed Palestinians at large, have to pay for the lack of boycott or any similarly effective pressures on Israel.
The most urgent type of support the international community can provide to the Palestinian academy is to adopt various forms of boycott against Israel's academic institutions, forcing them to disengage themselves from their direct and/or indirect collusion in their state's oppression. This will serve not only the Palestinians, but also, in the longer term, the moral left in Israel, academics included. Challenging the fanatic, militaristic establishment may strengthen its grip on power in the short run -- extreme populism and the rise of fascist tendencies in Israel today attest to that; but in the longer run it will weaken that establishment, just as in South Africa. Repression under apartheid did not die down in a smooth downwards spiral, after all.
(3) More suffocation? Even South Africa's leading human rights advocate, archbishop Desmond Tutu, horrified by the elaborate, multi-layered siege Israel has set up in the occupied Palestinian territories [23], drew many similarities between Israel and apartheid South Africa, calling for boycotts against the former similar to those applied on the latter. [24]
Some sincere advocates of Palestinian rights have argued that boycotting Israel is a self-righteous act that ignores the pressing need to alleviate the immediate suffering of Palestinians under occupation. But, as I have argued elsewhere,[25] regardless of all intentions, this type of logic is not only patronizing -- claiming to better know what's best for Palestinians -- but also based on an unconscious premise that Palestinians have somewhat less than normal human needs. Implied in it is the supposition that food, shelter and basic services -- which would be better served without boycott, the argument claims -- are considered by Palestinians to be more profound or dear than their need for freedom, justice, self-determination, dignified living and the opportunity to develop culturally, economically and socially in peace.
From an entirely different angle, some argue that, in spite of all the above, it is still necessary for Palestinian academics and intellectuals of all people to maintain and foster open communication channels with their Israeli counterparts, to debate, to share, to convince, to learn, to overcome the "psychological barriers" and ultimately to reach a common vision and a common struggle for peace.
I beg to differ. Those who imagine they can wish away the conflict by suggesting some forums for rapprochement, détente, or "dialogue" -- which they hope can lead to authentic processes of reconciliation and eventually peace -- are either clinically delusional or dangerously deceptive.
First, given the financial luring and political arm-twisting that typically come as part of the package of western "suggestions" for collaboration, the latter are more often than not perceived as right out dictates.
Second, any sincere joint projects aimed at reaching a just peace must be fundamentally based on rejection of all oppression and recognition of equal humanity. Prior to establishing equal humanity any communication is strictly an exercise in asymmetrical negotiations between oppressor and oppressed. Only after equality is established can such communication rise to the level of dialogue. The mutual recognition of equal humanity is therefore a fundamental precondition for, never a consequence of dialogue. As the late Edward Said used to say: "Equality or nothing!"
Third, if a member of the oppressors' community theoretically accepts -- on principle -- the requirements for justice without acting to attain them, while simultaneously enjoying the benefits brought about by occupation, racial discrimination and the illegal use of Palestinian refugees' properties, then he/she would still be indirectly responsible, and ethically accountable for the injustice his/her state is committing. Reflection without action cannot suffice to exonerate a member of an oppressive group. Action is needed to translate the formal commitment into a process for change and ethical transformation.
Israelis who always ask the Palestinians for a political price to be paid in advance in return for their "noble" recognition of a meager subset of Palestinian rights are not really seeking justice or a moral end to the conflict. Some shamelessly seek European funds; others do it for prestige or fame; and some even participate in this typical colonial behavior as a form of taming the Palestinian shrew, or inhibiting resistance to oppression.
Striving for peace divorced from justice is as good as institutionalizing injustice, or making the oppressed submit to the overwhelming force of the oppressor and accept inequality as fate.
Those who attempt to change the perception of the oppressed rather than help end oppression itself are guilty of moral blindness and political short-sightedness. Prolonging oppression is not only unethical, it is pragmatically counter-productive as well, as it perpetuates the conflict.
In conclusion, I wish to emphasize the necessity of applying an evolving, comprehensive, institutional boycott against Israel's academic, cultural, economic and political organizations. Without principled and effective support for this minimal, civil, non-violent form of resistance to oppression, or for any comparable form of struggle, intellectuals and academics will be abandoning their moral obligation to stand up for right, for justice, for equality and for a chance to validate the prevalence of universal ethical principles.
Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian political analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms" was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian. He can be reached at: jenna [at] palnet.com
Endnotes:
A shorter version of this article was presented before the "Resisting Israeli Apartheid" Conference at the University of London (SOAS), on December 5, 2004.
** Independent Palestinian researcher; founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
1. Etienne Balibar, A Complex Urgent Universal Political Cause, Address before the conference of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP), Université Libre de Bruxelles, July 3rd and 4th.
2 The Palestinian call for boycott, issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and supported by close to 60 of the most important professional, educational and cultural unions and organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories, can be read at: http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article178
3 "The Palestinian leadership would be well advised to take very seriously the united front in Israel that opposes a right of return," read the lead editorial in Ha'aretz, August 18, 2003.
4 According to peace activists Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir: "Transfer [Israeli euphemism for ethnic cleansing--OB] isn't necessarily a dramatic moment, a moment when people are expelled and flee their towns or villages. It is not necessarily a planned and well-organized move with buses and trucks loaded with people . Transfer is a deeper process, a creeping process that is hidden from view. The main component of the process is the gradual undermining of the infrastructure of the civilian Palestinian population's lives in the territories: its continuing strangulation under closures and sieges that prevent people from getting to work or school, from receiving medical services, and from allowing the passage of water trucks and ambulances, which sends the Palestinians back to the age of donkey and cart. Taken together, these measures undermine the hold of the Palestinian population on its land." Cited in: Ran HaCohen, Ethnic Cleansing: Past, Present, and Future, http://www.Antiwar.com, December 30, 2002.
5 The Palestinian village's name is Sheikh Muwannis.
6 Ran Reznick, Ramat Hovav has double number of birth defects and cancer, Ha'aretz, June 1, 2004.
7 One example is the "Mitzpim Project," supervised by Sofer, which calls for the "conquest" of areas populated by Palestinian-Arabs inside via Jews-only settlements and roads. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/481680.html
8 Following a visit to the completely fenced Gaza Strip, Oona King, a Jewish member of the British parliament commented on the irony that Israeli Jews face today, saying: "in escaping the ashes of the Holocaust, they have incarcerated another people in a hell similar in its nature - though not its extent - to the Warsaw ghetto." Israel Can Halt This Now, The Guardian, June 12, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,975423,00.html
9 According to surveys of Jewish-Israeli views on conscription, the primary factor indicating support for the continuation of the "people's army" heritage, a solid majority favours it. For example, refer to the authoritative April 2001 Peace Index poll conducted by Tel Aviv University at: http://www.tau.ac.il/peace/Peace_Index/2001/English/p_april_01_e.html
10 Chris McGreal, Israel Shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock, The Guardian, November 29, 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1361755,00.html
11 Amos Harel, Absolutely Illegal, Ha'aretz, 23/11/2004. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/504878.html
12 Serge Schmemann, At Least 17 Are Killed in Israeli Raid at Palestinian Camp in Gaza, New York Times, 12/3/2002.
13 According to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, "Although the Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel represent approximately 20% of its population, this community suffers from institutionalized discrimination that produces severe socio-economic gaps between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. No significant investments are made to eliminate these gaps. On the contrary, the Arab population continues to suffer from under-budgeting and discrimination in many areas including employment, education, property and planning policies, and health care services." http://www.phr.org.il/Phr/Pages/PhrArticle_Unit.asp?Cat=37&Pcat=4
14 Yulie Khromchenco , Poll: 64% of Israeli Jews support encouraging Arabs to leave, Ha'aretz, June 22, 2004.
15 Human Rights Watch, Second Class: Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's Schools, September 2001. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2
16 Noam Chomsky, for instance, describes sanctions as "probably harmful and at best pointless," arguing that, "In the current real-world circumstances, a call for sanctions, even if it were justified, would be greatly welcomed by the right wing extremists and hard-liners, because they could easily convert it into another 'proof' that everyone wants to kill the Jews and so we must rise to the support of embattled Israel to prevent another Holocaust." ZNet, May 31, 2004. http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000492.html
17 Etienne Balibar, ibid.
18 Tony Judt, Israel: The Alternative, New York Review of Books, Vol. 50, #16, October 23, 2003. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671
19 Reuven Pedatzur, The Israeli army's house philosopher, Ha'aretz, February 24, 2004.
20 Ran Hacohen, Against Negotiations, Antiwar.com, March 28, 2002. http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h032802.html
21 Benny Morris, A new exodus for the Middle East, The Guardian, October 3, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,803417,00.html
22 Baruch Kimmerling, False logic, The Guardian, October 5, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,805123,00.html
23 Desmond Tutu, Apartheid in the Holy Land, CounterPunch, April 29, 2002.
24 Desmond Tutu, Of Occupation and Apartheid Do I Divest?, CounterPunch, October 17, 2002.
25 See "On Refugees, Creativity and Ethics," ZNet, September 28, 2002. http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/bhargoutirefeth.cfm
The Case for Boycotting Israel
By OMAR BARGHOUTI
"Where is the world? Is it dead?" exclaimed the bereaved mother in Rafah on Al-Jazeera. Before her, lied the lifeless body of her little child.
Faced with overwhelming Israeli oppression, Palestinians under occupation, in refugee camps and in the heart of Israel's distinct form of apartheid have increasingly reached out to the world for understanding, for compassion, and, more importantly, for solidarity. Palestinians do not beg for sympathy. We deeply resent patronization, for we are no longer a nation of hapless victims. We are resisting racial and colonial oppression, aspiring to attain justice and genuine peace. Above all, we are struggling for the universal principle of equal humanity.
But we cannot do it alone. We need international support.
The question of Palestine was created by the world -- mostly the western part of it -- and it is the world that must rise to its moral responsibility to resolve it. The renowned French philosopher Etienne Balibar captures this exceptional feature saying that the Palestinian cause is a "universal" one because "it is a test for the recognition of right, and the implementation of international law."[1] Indeed, in few other causes in modern history has the fundamental primacy of the rule of law and moral principles been put to such a fatal challenge.
Given its uncontested military superiority, the unquestioning and all-embracing support it enjoys from the world's only empire and the lack of political will by Arab and European states to hold it in check, Israel has been gravely violating international law, with audacious impunity, showing little if any consideration for the UN or world public opinion. Only consistent, systematic and broad international pressures can help end Israel's oppression and injustice, through ascertaining its status as a pariah state.
This article focuses on the ethical dimension of boycott, a tactic which I regard not only as a justified form of international intervention, but an imperative one as well. More specifically, academic and cultural boycott is examined, due to its evidently controversial nature.
The Palestinian call for academic and cultural boycott of Israel [2] is specifically premised upon Israel's systematic and ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people which takes three basic forms:
First: Israel's rejection of the Palestinian refugees' right of return to their lands and properties, as stipulated in international law, and denying any responsibility for the Nakba -- the massive dispossession and ethnic cleansing campaign carried out by Zionists around 1948, transforming close to 800,000 Palestinians into refugees. A virtual consensus exists among Israelis, including academics and other intellectuals, on rejecting the legally and morally binding rights of Palestinian refugees.[3]
The most peculiar dimension in the popular and academic Israeli discourses on the creation of the state is substituting the concept of "independence" for colonization and birth for destruction. Even committed "leftists" often grieve over the loss of Israel's "moral superiority" after occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, as if prior to that Israel were as civil, legitimate and law-abiding as Finland! Ironically, while stubbornly rejecting Palestinian refugee rights, Israeli academics have played a central role in the massive campaigns demanding, and often winning, restitution, repatriation and compensation rights for Jewish refugees of the World War II era.
Second: the Military colonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, with all what it entails in land expropriations, house demolitions, indiscriminate killings, and, most ominously, the colonial wall -- declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July of this year -- which serves to facilitate Israel's unremitting land grab and gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.[4] Israeli universities -- all government controlled -- have not only been complicit in planning, maintaining and furnishing the justification for various aspects of the occupation, but have also directly participated in acts of colonization. Besides the voluminous record of individual acts of collusion by Israeli academics, the academic institutions themselves have never refrained from committing colonial crimes themselves.
The Hebrew University has been slowly but consistently expropriating lands and expelling their Palestinian owners in occupied East Jerusalem.
Tel Aviv University (TAU) refuses to date to acknowledge the fact that it sits on top of an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village.[5] Some of TAU's departments are also organically linked to the military and intelligence establishment.
Bar Ilan University not only operates a campus on the illegal colony of Ariel near Nablus, but has also awarded Ariel Sharon an honorary doctorate for his role in the March 2002 reoccupation of Palestinian cities, which witnessed atrocities in Jenin and Nablus as well as wanton destruction and indiscriminate killings in all the major Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the West bank.
Ben Gurion University has supported in various ways the slow ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev or has witnessed in condemning silence the decades-old policy of racial discrimination prevailing there. In one glaring example, its scholars conducted from 1995 to 2000 a confidential study [6] commissioned by the Health Ministry on the high incidence rate of severe birth defects and cancer among Palestinian Bedouins living near a polluting Israeli industrial site. Although the researchers established a clear correlation between the industrial pollutants and the mortality rate of the Palestinian citizens in the area -- "65% higher than among equivalent communities in Israel" -- as well as their cancer rate -- "double the national average" -- the findings were kept secret in accordance with the academics' agreement with the ministry. It was only recently leaked to the press, by chance.
Haifa University boasts one of the most racist academics in Israel: Prof. Arnon Sofer, the infamous "prophet of the Arab demographic threat," who relentlessly and influentially provides academic justification for ethnically cleansing Palestinians -- including citizens of Israel -- in innovative shapes and forms.[7] Moreover, the University has itself sponsored a wide campaign attempting to cover up a Zionist massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura, near Haifa, during the Nakba, and went through motions to fire, discredit or silence Prof. Ilan Pappe and one of his students for daring to reveal the facts about this massacre.
It is perhaps common knowledge now that the Palestinians have suffered grave human losses due to Israel's 37-year-old occupation. But what seems to escape the mainstream opinion makers is that during the current intifada, the Israeli army has crossed many of its former red lines, committing crimes that are reminiscent in form -- though certainly not in scale -- of Nazi crimes against European Jews, as British MP Oona King had once stated.[8] And the Israeli army accurately represents and is supported by Israeli society at large, mainly due to the fact that the IDF is still, relatively speaking, a people's army.[9]
From forcing a Palestinian violinist to play at a military roadblock near Nablus [10], to executing a 13-year-old refugee girl in Rafah in cold blood,[11] to engraving the Star of David on the arms of teenage Palestinian boys, to inscribing ID numbers on the foreheads and forearms of Palestinians, young and old,[12] Israel has acted with nauseating criminality and shocking impunity. Despite all this, Israeli academics and intellectuals who have explicitly called for an end to the occupation have remained in a depressingly tiny minority. Moreover, no Israeli academic body or professional union has to date publicly called for an end to occupation and the other forms of Israeli oppression. If this does not define complicity, what does?
Third: The third form of Israeli oppression is hardly ever mentioned in the western media or in academia: the system of racial discrimination against Palestinian-Arabs [13] who are officially "citizens" of Israel, a state which categorically precludes them from its self-definition and severely punishes them when they eventually shout "j'accuse!". The entire state apparatus, including the education system, is designed to keep Palestinian-Arab citizens of Israel disempowered, largely dispossessed and lacking equal status in the laws and practices of the state. Moreover, despite being the natives, the indigenous population of the land, or perhaps because of it, they are increasingly being viewed by the Israeli Jewish settler majority as unwanted, or, worse, as a demographic threat that ought to be dealt with, resolutely. Polls have steadily shown that a solid majority of two thirds of all Israeli Jews supports "encouraging the Arabs to leave" by various means.[14]
In every vital aspect of life, from land ownership to access to higher education and jobs, Israel has for been practicing its own form of apartheid for 56 years. Of all the areas of racial discrimination, education stands out. A ground-breaking Human Rights Watch study published in 2001 concludes:
"The hurdles Palestinian Arab students face from kindergarten to university function like a series of sieves with sequentially finer holes. At each stage, the education system filters out a higher proportion of Palestinian Arab students than Jewish students. . And Israel's courts have yet to use laws or more general principles of equality to protect Palestinian Arab children from discrimination in education." [15]
Despite the above, I agree with those who argue that Israel is not identical to South Africa; that it is more complex, more multi-dimensional and even more sinister, in some respect. But, no matter how we define Israel, the fundamental and undisputed existence in it of a system of racial discrimination based on religious/ethnic identity is what motivates calls for South Africa-like sanctions against Israel. "Apartheid," "Zionist settler-colonialism," "Jewish supremacy," ...etc. are all variations on the name of the ailment. What matters is how best to cure it. Taking into consideration all 3 dimensions of Israel's oppression mentioned above, it can be concluded that a sufficient family resemblance between Israel and South Africa exists to grant advocating South Africa style remedies.
Main Arguments Against Boycott I
Some distinguished supporters of the Palestinian cause [16] have argued against applying South-Africa style sanctions and boycotts to Israel for various reasons, most significant of which are:
(A) The Holocaust's memory makes calls for boycotting Israel widely detested and prohibitively unpopular.
(B) Israel is essentially a democratic country with a vibrant civil society, and therefore it can be convinced to end its oppression without sanctions.
(C) Unlike in South Africa during apartheid, the majority in Israel is opposed to sanctions.
(D) Israeli academics are largely progressive and at the vanguard of the peace movement, and therefore they must be supported not boycotted.
Counter Arguments I
(A) As Etienne Balibar says, "Israel should not be allowed to instrumentalize the genocide of European Jews to put [itself] above the law of nations."[17] Beyond that, by turning a blind eye to Israel's oppression, as the U.S. and most of official Europe often do, the west has in fact perpetuated the misery, the human suffering and the injustice that have ensued since the Holocaust. Only the oppressed are different now; they are "the victims of the victims," as Edward Said said.
As for the unpopularity argument, recent breakthroughs in the positions of the US Presbyterian church, the Anglican church and some progressive Jewish-American organizations -- not to mention the fast spreading grassroots boycott movement in Europe -- indicate that there is an encouragingly growing acceptance of the need to boycott Israel in western countries. Those who were active in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa often remind us that also they faced what seemed like insurmountable hurdles when they first started in the late 1950's.
(B) How can an ethno-religious supremacy that is also a colonial power ever qualify as a democracy? Israel may be a democracy for its Jewish citizens, but it is an apartheid for its Palestinian citizens, as argued earlier. New York University professor Tony Judt, for instance, calls Israel a "dysfunctional anachronism," categorizing it among the "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno states."[18]
(C) Of all the anti-boycott arguments, this one reflects either surprising naiveté or deliberate intellectual dishonesty. Are we to judge whether to apply sanctions on a colonial power based on the opinion of the majority in the oppressors' community? Does the oppressed community count at all?
(D) This is simply a myth propagated and maintained by Israeli academics who count themselves in the "left." The vast majority of Israeli academics serves in the army's reserve forces, and therefore directly knows of and participates in the daily crimes. Moreover, with the exception of a tiny yet crucial minority, Israeli academics are largely supportive of their state's oppression or are acquiescently silent about it.
Some infamous cases are worth mentioning here for illumination: Israel's most celebrated philosopher, Asa Kasher, provided "ethical" justification for extra-judicial killings, even when a large number of innocent civilians are deliberately killed or injured in the process.[19]
Israel's foremost military historian, Martin Van Creveld, of Hebrew University, advised the Israeli army in 2002 [20] -- in the Jerusalem regional weekly, March 1, 2004 -- to commit swift genocide against the Palestinians, explaining that, "Perhaps 5.000 or 10.000 killed won't be enough, and then we will have to kill more." He concludes by saying, "it is better that there be one massive crime, after which we will exit and lock the gate behind us." Like any proper peacenik, his ultimate objective remains to "exit" the occupied territories.
Benny Morris has recently argued that completely emptying Palestine of its indigenous Arab inhabitants in 1948 might have led to peace in the Middle East.[21] In response, Baruch Kimmerling, professor at Hebrew University, wrote:
"Let me extend Benny Morris's logic . If the Nazi programme for the final solution of the Jewish problem had been complete, for sure there would be peace today in Palestine."[22]
Far from being isolated examples, such explicitly racist and criminal positions are quite popular in Israel today. They are not only condoned in universities, but highly praised, judging from the prominent stature enjoyed by Kasher, Van Creveld, Benny Morris and their ilk.
Main Arguments Against Boycott II
From a slightly different perspective, some academics have argued that boycotting Israel is counterproductive and may lead to:
(1) Losing the ability to influence Israel's possible path to peace
(2) Radicalizing the Israeli right and pulling the rug from under the feet of the left
(3) Indirectly increasing the suffering of Palestinians who stand to lose financially and may even be subjected to deteriorating conditions of oppression by a wilder, more isolated Israel.
Counter Arguments II
(1) What influence? Europe hardly has any right now. Even in the U.S., the Israeliziation of US foreign policy, particularly vs. the middle east, has reached new depths, effectively tying the hands of any prospective American pressure aimed at curtailing, not to mention changing, Israel's oppressive policies. On the rare occasions when Israel did at all contemplate changing its policies, it was mainly due to facing concerted pressures by the international community.
(2) What left? Those in Israel who officially call themselves "the left" -- the Zionist left, more accurately -- easily make the far-right parties in Europe look as moral as Mother Teresa, especially when it comes to recognizing Palestinian refugees' rights. On the other hand, the morally consistent, non-Zionist left, is a very tiny group, whose members may inadvertently end up losing benefits, privileges and funding as a result of boycott. This should compel us to nuance our boycott tactics to decrease the possibility of that unnecessarily happening. But, we all know, this is not an exact science (if any science is). Rather than focusing on the error margin, we must emphasize the positive impact boycott can have on the overall academic establishment in Israel. The price that some conscientious academics may pay as an unavoidable byproduct of the boycott is quite cheap when compared to the price Palestinian academics, and indeed Palestinians at large, have to pay for the lack of boycott or any similarly effective pressures on Israel.
The most urgent type of support the international community can provide to the Palestinian academy is to adopt various forms of boycott against Israel's academic institutions, forcing them to disengage themselves from their direct and/or indirect collusion in their state's oppression. This will serve not only the Palestinians, but also, in the longer term, the moral left in Israel, academics included. Challenging the fanatic, militaristic establishment may strengthen its grip on power in the short run -- extreme populism and the rise of fascist tendencies in Israel today attest to that; but in the longer run it will weaken that establishment, just as in South Africa. Repression under apartheid did not die down in a smooth downwards spiral, after all.
(3) More suffocation? Even South Africa's leading human rights advocate, archbishop Desmond Tutu, horrified by the elaborate, multi-layered siege Israel has set up in the occupied Palestinian territories [23], drew many similarities between Israel and apartheid South Africa, calling for boycotts against the former similar to those applied on the latter. [24]
Some sincere advocates of Palestinian rights have argued that boycotting Israel is a self-righteous act that ignores the pressing need to alleviate the immediate suffering of Palestinians under occupation. But, as I have argued elsewhere,[25] regardless of all intentions, this type of logic is not only patronizing -- claiming to better know what's best for Palestinians -- but also based on an unconscious premise that Palestinians have somewhat less than normal human needs. Implied in it is the supposition that food, shelter and basic services -- which would be better served without boycott, the argument claims -- are considered by Palestinians to be more profound or dear than their need for freedom, justice, self-determination, dignified living and the opportunity to develop culturally, economically and socially in peace.
From an entirely different angle, some argue that, in spite of all the above, it is still necessary for Palestinian academics and intellectuals of all people to maintain and foster open communication channels with their Israeli counterparts, to debate, to share, to convince, to learn, to overcome the "psychological barriers" and ultimately to reach a common vision and a common struggle for peace.
I beg to differ. Those who imagine they can wish away the conflict by suggesting some forums for rapprochement, détente, or "dialogue" -- which they hope can lead to authentic processes of reconciliation and eventually peace -- are either clinically delusional or dangerously deceptive.
First, given the financial luring and political arm-twisting that typically come as part of the package of western "suggestions" for collaboration, the latter are more often than not perceived as right out dictates.
Second, any sincere joint projects aimed at reaching a just peace must be fundamentally based on rejection of all oppression and recognition of equal humanity. Prior to establishing equal humanity any communication is strictly an exercise in asymmetrical negotiations between oppressor and oppressed. Only after equality is established can such communication rise to the level of dialogue. The mutual recognition of equal humanity is therefore a fundamental precondition for, never a consequence of dialogue. As the late Edward Said used to say: "Equality or nothing!"
Third, if a member of the oppressors' community theoretically accepts -- on principle -- the requirements for justice without acting to attain them, while simultaneously enjoying the benefits brought about by occupation, racial discrimination and the illegal use of Palestinian refugees' properties, then he/she would still be indirectly responsible, and ethically accountable for the injustice his/her state is committing. Reflection without action cannot suffice to exonerate a member of an oppressive group. Action is needed to translate the formal commitment into a process for change and ethical transformation.
Israelis who always ask the Palestinians for a political price to be paid in advance in return for their "noble" recognition of a meager subset of Palestinian rights are not really seeking justice or a moral end to the conflict. Some shamelessly seek European funds; others do it for prestige or fame; and some even participate in this typical colonial behavior as a form of taming the Palestinian shrew, or inhibiting resistance to oppression.
Striving for peace divorced from justice is as good as institutionalizing injustice, or making the oppressed submit to the overwhelming force of the oppressor and accept inequality as fate.
Those who attempt to change the perception of the oppressed rather than help end oppression itself are guilty of moral blindness and political short-sightedness. Prolonging oppression is not only unethical, it is pragmatically counter-productive as well, as it perpetuates the conflict.
In conclusion, I wish to emphasize the necessity of applying an evolving, comprehensive, institutional boycott against Israel's academic, cultural, economic and political organizations. Without principled and effective support for this minimal, civil, non-violent form of resistance to oppression, or for any comparable form of struggle, intellectuals and academics will be abandoning their moral obligation to stand up for right, for justice, for equality and for a chance to validate the prevalence of universal ethical principles.
Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian political analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms" was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian. He can be reached at: jenna [at] palnet.com
Endnotes:
A shorter version of this article was presented before the "Resisting Israeli Apartheid" Conference at the University of London (SOAS), on December 5, 2004.
** Independent Palestinian researcher; founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI).
1. Etienne Balibar, A Complex Urgent Universal Political Cause, Address before the conference of Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (FFIPP), Université Libre de Bruxelles, July 3rd and 4th.
2 The Palestinian call for boycott, issued by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and supported by close to 60 of the most important professional, educational and cultural unions and organizations in the occupied Palestinian territories, can be read at: http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/news/article178
3 "The Palestinian leadership would be well advised to take very seriously the united front in Israel that opposes a right of return," read the lead editorial in Ha'aretz, August 18, 2003.
4 According to peace activists Gadi Algazi and Azmi Bdeir: "Transfer [Israeli euphemism for ethnic cleansing--OB] isn't necessarily a dramatic moment, a moment when people are expelled and flee their towns or villages. It is not necessarily a planned and well-organized move with buses and trucks loaded with people . Transfer is a deeper process, a creeping process that is hidden from view. The main component of the process is the gradual undermining of the infrastructure of the civilian Palestinian population's lives in the territories: its continuing strangulation under closures and sieges that prevent people from getting to work or school, from receiving medical services, and from allowing the passage of water trucks and ambulances, which sends the Palestinians back to the age of donkey and cart. Taken together, these measures undermine the hold of the Palestinian population on its land." Cited in: Ran HaCohen, Ethnic Cleansing: Past, Present, and Future, http://www.Antiwar.com, December 30, 2002.
5 The Palestinian village's name is Sheikh Muwannis.
6 Ran Reznick, Ramat Hovav has double number of birth defects and cancer, Ha'aretz, June 1, 2004.
7 One example is the "Mitzpim Project," supervised by Sofer, which calls for the "conquest" of areas populated by Palestinian-Arabs inside via Jews-only settlements and roads. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/481680.html
8 Following a visit to the completely fenced Gaza Strip, Oona King, a Jewish member of the British parliament commented on the irony that Israeli Jews face today, saying: "in escaping the ashes of the Holocaust, they have incarcerated another people in a hell similar in its nature - though not its extent - to the Warsaw ghetto." Israel Can Halt This Now, The Guardian, June 12, 2003. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,975423,00.html
9 According to surveys of Jewish-Israeli views on conscription, the primary factor indicating support for the continuation of the "people's army" heritage, a solid majority favours it. For example, refer to the authoritative April 2001 Peace Index poll conducted by Tel Aviv University at: http://www.tau.ac.il/peace/Peace_Index/2001/English/p_april_01_e.html
10 Chris McGreal, Israel Shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock, The Guardian, November 29, 2004. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1361755,00.html
11 Amos Harel, Absolutely Illegal, Ha'aretz, 23/11/2004. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/504878.html
12 Serge Schmemann, At Least 17 Are Killed in Israeli Raid at Palestinian Camp in Gaza, New York Times, 12/3/2002.
13 According to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, "Although the Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel represent approximately 20% of its population, this community suffers from institutionalized discrimination that produces severe socio-economic gaps between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. No significant investments are made to eliminate these gaps. On the contrary, the Arab population continues to suffer from under-budgeting and discrimination in many areas including employment, education, property and planning policies, and health care services." http://www.phr.org.il/Phr/Pages/PhrArticle_Unit.asp?Cat=37&Pcat=4
14 Yulie Khromchenco , Poll: 64% of Israeli Jews support encouraging Arabs to leave, Ha'aretz, June 22, 2004.
15 Human Rights Watch, Second Class: Discrimination Against Palestinian Arab Children in Israel's Schools, September 2001. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/israel2
16 Noam Chomsky, for instance, describes sanctions as "probably harmful and at best pointless," arguing that, "In the current real-world circumstances, a call for sanctions, even if it were justified, would be greatly welcomed by the right wing extremists and hard-liners, because they could easily convert it into another 'proof' that everyone wants to kill the Jews and so we must rise to the support of embattled Israel to prevent another Holocaust." ZNet, May 31, 2004. http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000492.html
17 Etienne Balibar, ibid.
18 Tony Judt, Israel: The Alternative, New York Review of Books, Vol. 50, #16, October 23, 2003. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/16671
19 Reuven Pedatzur, The Israeli army's house philosopher, Ha'aretz, February 24, 2004.
20 Ran Hacohen, Against Negotiations, Antiwar.com, March 28, 2002. http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h032802.html
21 Benny Morris, A new exodus for the Middle East, The Guardian, October 3, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,803417,00.html
22 Baruch Kimmerling, False logic, The Guardian, October 5, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,805123,00.html
23 Desmond Tutu, Apartheid in the Holy Land, CounterPunch, April 29, 2002.
24 Desmond Tutu, Of Occupation and Apartheid Do I Divest?, CounterPunch, October 17, 2002.
25 See "On Refugees, Creativity and Ethics," ZNet, September 28, 2002. http://www.zmag.org/content/Mideast/bhargoutirefeth.cfm
For more information:
http://www.counterpunch.org/barghouti12222...
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The US needs to leave the Arab countries alone--- stop messing with them! And that means the US must stop supporting the moneypit racist imperialistic Jewish state of Israel who is using the US as its cash cow to take over the surrounding non-Jewish Arab countries. The US doesn't need to do this, but pro-Israel forces are forcing the US to back Israel with all kinds of methods. The US gets its oil cheap from the Arab countries. We don't need to fight a $200 billion + war to steal their resources! That's absurd! It's all because pro-Israel forces are manipulating the US to benefit Israel and its supporters. That does not include most Americans, if they knew the truth about the matter. They'd prefer to have their money stay here for our schools and healthcare and have their sons & daughters NOT fighting in an unjust, greedy war for Israel's "security".
I am determined to buy as many Israeli products I can.
Soldiers catch Palestinian child wearing explosive belt
Israel Defense Forces soldiers caught a Palestinian boy, aged 6, wearing an explosive belt at the Hawara roadblock south of Nablus in the West Bank. Sappers detonated the device in a controlled explosion.
(March 24, 2004)
That's what anti-Jews always say.
You know, I've come here for years to read, and occasionally to post -- and I have to say, your behavior is abhorrent. Just because this is an open newswire, that doesn't give you the right to take advantage of that openness by sniping at each other. Please utilize brief, respectful comments. And if you troll here all the time, looking to push some agenda that is clearly not part of IMC's mission? Shame on you. Part of being a Jew (or for that matter, a Muslim) is mindfulness and compassion towards other living beings. As it is, many of you are setting a poor example. Please think carefully before you shoot across the bow.
Frustrated IMC reader
Frustrated IMC reader
The person with whom the article originated and/or the perosn who posted it lack/s in all these departments.
>Part of being a Jew (or for that matter, a Muslim) is mindfulness and compassion towards other living beings.
As a rational being, I am neither a Muslim nor a Jew, nor for that matter a Christian, a Hindu or anything else that relies faith and eschews reason. I am mindful of of who deserves compassion. I reserve mine for those them. Those who oppress others deserve no compassion. They deserve justice.
As for the rest of the people around here, i can't speak for them. I do note, however, that defense of oppression is inappropriate for Indymedia to be broadcasting. It goes against everything that Indymedia is supposed to stand for. This place, the name and our honor have been hijacked by ruthless, brutal, racist oppressors. Throw them out, and Indymedia can once again be a credible news source. In the meantime, the lies of the oppressors discredit us all.
As a rational being, I am neither a Muslim nor a Jew, nor for that matter a Christian, a Hindu or anything else that relies faith and eschews reason. I am mindful of of who deserves compassion. I reserve mine for those them. Those who oppress others deserve no compassion. They deserve justice.
As for the rest of the people around here, i can't speak for them. I do note, however, that defense of oppression is inappropriate for Indymedia to be broadcasting. It goes against everything that Indymedia is supposed to stand for. This place, the name and our honor have been hijacked by ruthless, brutal, racist oppressors. Throw them out, and Indymedia can once again be a credible news source. In the meantime, the lies of the oppressors discredit us all.
Headlines:
Foreign Ministry opens crisis centers. Israel sends emergency aid to earthquake victims
(26 December 2004)
IDF humanitarian an medical shipment leaving for Sri Lanka
(28 December 2004)
Israeli researchers develop vaccine that enables recovery of AIDS patients' immune system
(27 December 2004)
So...instead of seeking a uniform justice in the name of a scripture, you seek a uniform justice in the name of...yourself? I do know what you're getting at, but you're gonna have to do better than that.
Personally, I feel that there is a hateful tone (if not outright hatred) that occurs in many of the pro-israel posts, but last time I looked, at least some of the anti-israel posts aren't exactly bastions of tolerance. I suspect that what's going on though is that there's a lot more pro-israel posts here, which definitely skews the representation. I have seen *some* highly inflammatory anti-israel posts that were hid from the newswire (presumably because it was pretty obvious that they were visciously anti-jewish, not just anti-Israel or pro-Intifada).
On the other hand, IMC has never proclaimed to be "fair and objective" (which given what that has come to represent, is probably a good thing). So, perhaps you're right when it comes to justice, I don't know. It's pretty clear to me that there's a concerted effort to post pro-Israel posts that are at the least designed to put down Palestinian struggles, which is not what IMC is about. It's low-intensity word warfare, basically. Is there a place for that on IMC? I suppose that's the question, isn't it?
Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved? Sitting on the sidelines just means that your framework for justice in alternative media is relegated to "please add a comment." At the least, you could post articles, if you aren't doing so already. "Become the Media," ya know? Getting pissed off about IMC and not doing anything about it is, well....kinda whiny, to be honest. Nobody's stopping you from becoming active. So why aren't you? You got a complaint, you may want to speak up about it.
Personally, I feel that there is a hateful tone (if not outright hatred) that occurs in many of the pro-israel posts, but last time I looked, at least some of the anti-israel posts aren't exactly bastions of tolerance. I suspect that what's going on though is that there's a lot more pro-israel posts here, which definitely skews the representation. I have seen *some* highly inflammatory anti-israel posts that were hid from the newswire (presumably because it was pretty obvious that they were visciously anti-jewish, not just anti-Israel or pro-Intifada).
On the other hand, IMC has never proclaimed to be "fair and objective" (which given what that has come to represent, is probably a good thing). So, perhaps you're right when it comes to justice, I don't know. It's pretty clear to me that there's a concerted effort to post pro-Israel posts that are at the least designed to put down Palestinian struggles, which is not what IMC is about. It's low-intensity word warfare, basically. Is there a place for that on IMC? I suppose that's the question, isn't it?
Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved? Sitting on the sidelines just means that your framework for justice in alternative media is relegated to "please add a comment." At the least, you could post articles, if you aren't doing so already. "Become the Media," ya know? Getting pissed off about IMC and not doing anything about it is, well....kinda whiny, to be honest. Nobody's stopping you from becoming active. So why aren't you? You got a complaint, you may want to speak up about it.
That you would even consider tolerance an appropriate response to racist aggression and terrorism, is simply appealing. Would you have had our ancestors tolerate Hitler?
Learn to distinguish between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Israel posts. Don’t let the Zionist propaganda mill confuse you. Zionism is to Jews what Nazism is to Germans, an embarrassment to an otherwise admirable people. To be anti-Israel is not, per se, to be anti-Israel. Yeah, anti-Semites are anti-Israel. But most people who are anti-Israel are not are not anti-Semites. The Zionist propaganda mill will try very hard to confuse you about this. Don’t fall for it. It’s like trying to convince people to support Hitler because his chief enemy was the original Stalinist. It’s bunk logic.
Anything good that anyone says about Israel helps to prolong the oppression it commits. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or false. Yeah, there are true thing that one can say that makes Israel look good. So what? There are equally true things you can say that make the Third Reich look good. It ended unemployment, advanced science, medicine and public health. It built a great network of roads. It was decades ahead in the war on cancer. So what? It was a racist aggressor that needed to be destroyed. Saying good things about it, even true things, only furthered its cause.
>Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved?
I am involved. I’m one of the editors at SF-IMC. Over there we have the common human decency not to provide a soapbox for racist aggressors. That the editors of this site do, is appalling. They aid and abet the staunchest enemies of all that the Global Justice Movement stands for. They disgrace Indymedia’s honor.
Learn to distinguish between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Israel posts. Don’t let the Zionist propaganda mill confuse you. Zionism is to Jews what Nazism is to Germans, an embarrassment to an otherwise admirable people. To be anti-Israel is not, per se, to be anti-Israel. Yeah, anti-Semites are anti-Israel. But most people who are anti-Israel are not are not anti-Semites. The Zionist propaganda mill will try very hard to confuse you about this. Don’t fall for it. It’s like trying to convince people to support Hitler because his chief enemy was the original Stalinist. It’s bunk logic.
Anything good that anyone says about Israel helps to prolong the oppression it commits. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or false. Yeah, there are true thing that one can say that makes Israel look good. So what? There are equally true things you can say that make the Third Reich look good. It ended unemployment, advanced science, medicine and public health. It built a great network of roads. It was decades ahead in the war on cancer. So what? It was a racist aggressor that needed to be destroyed. Saying good things about it, even true things, only furthered its cause.
>Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved?
I am involved. I’m one of the editors at SF-IMC. Over there we have the common human decency not to provide a soapbox for racist aggressors. That the editors of this site do, is appalling. They aid and abet the staunchest enemies of all that the Global Justice Movement stands for. They disgrace Indymedia’s honor.
>That you would even consider tolerance an appropriate response to racist aggression and terrorism, is simply appealing. Would you have had our ancestors tolerate Hitler?
Please don't twist my words. What I *said* was that *some* of the posts (which I would remind you were HIDDEN, which is something you would know about with your work on SF IMC) were anti-Jewish -- as in, "kill the Jews". I presume that you're not arguing for that, correct? I don't know where on earth you got tolerance for racist agression out of my posts, but whatever.
I do know the difference between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Zionist ones. Please. I'm not an idiot, please don't treat me like one. And as far as disgracing Indymedia, well...at the risk of sounding like Neville Chamberlain, call me neutral on that.
OK, I'm out...
Please don't twist my words. What I *said* was that *some* of the posts (which I would remind you were HIDDEN, which is something you would know about with your work on SF IMC) were anti-Jewish -- as in, "kill the Jews". I presume that you're not arguing for that, correct? I don't know where on earth you got tolerance for racist agression out of my posts, but whatever.
I do know the difference between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Zionist ones. Please. I'm not an idiot, please don't treat me like one. And as far as disgracing Indymedia, well...at the risk of sounding like Neville Chamberlain, call me neutral on that.
OK, I'm out...
> Personally, I feel that there is a hateful tone (if not outright hatred) that occurs in many of the pro-israel posts, but last time I looked, at least some of the anti-israel posts aren't exactly bastions of tolerance. I suspect that what's going on though is that there's a lot more pro-israel posts here, which definitely skews the representation. I have seen *some* highly inflammatory anti-israel posts that were hid from the newswire (presumably because it was pretty obvious that they were visciously anti-jewish, not just anti-Israel or pro-Intifada). <
How is this tolerating racist aggression? Note that I said *some*, not *all,* some. Further, I clarified what I meant in the following post by saying that I was referring to posts that contained hate speech. Trust me, I'm not soft on oppressors. I just don't think that oppossing oppression is served by saying "kill the jews" or some shit. Is that sufficiently clear?
How is this tolerating racist aggression? Note that I said *some*, not *all,* some. Further, I clarified what I meant in the following post by saying that I was referring to posts that contained hate speech. Trust me, I'm not soft on oppressors. I just don't think that oppossing oppression is served by saying "kill the jews" or some shit. Is that sufficiently clear?
That you would even consider tolerance an appropriate response to nessiesque racist incitement to aggression and terrorism, is simply appealing. Would you have had our ancestors tolerate Hitler?
Learn to distinguish between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Israel posts. Don’t let the ubiqituous nessiesque anti-Zionist propaganda mill confuse you. nessiesque anti-Zionism is to non-Jews what Nazism is to Germans, an embarrassment to otherwise mostly reasonable people. To be anti-Israel *is*, per se, to be anti-Israel. Yeah, anti-Semites are anti-Israel and most people who are anti-Israel are anti-Semites, too. The nessiesque anti-Zionist propaganda mill will try very hard to confuse you to think otherwise. Don’t fall for it. It’s like trying to convince people to support Hitler because his chief enemy was the original Stalinist. It’s bunk logic.
Anything good that anyone unjustifiably says about Palestininians helps to prolong the oppression some of their leaders commit. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or false. Yeah, there are true things that one can say that make Palestinians look good. So what? There are equally true things you can say that make the Third Reich look good. It ended unemployment, advanced science, medicine and public health. It built a great network of roads. It was decades ahead in the war on cancer. So what? It was a racist aggressor that needed to be destroyed. Saying good things about it, even true things, only furthered its cause.
>Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved?
I am involved. I’m the grand editor at SF-IMC. Over there we have the common human indecency not to provide a soapbox for anyone I disagree with and accordingly dub racist aggressors. That the editors of this site do, is elating. They aid and abet the staunchest enemies of all that the fake nessiesque Global Justice Movement stands for. They disgrace SF-IMC's honor.
Learn to distinguish between anti-Jewish posts and anti-Israel posts. Don’t let the ubiqituous nessiesque anti-Zionist propaganda mill confuse you. nessiesque anti-Zionism is to non-Jews what Nazism is to Germans, an embarrassment to otherwise mostly reasonable people. To be anti-Israel *is*, per se, to be anti-Israel. Yeah, anti-Semites are anti-Israel and most people who are anti-Israel are anti-Semites, too. The nessiesque anti-Zionist propaganda mill will try very hard to confuse you to think otherwise. Don’t fall for it. It’s like trying to convince people to support Hitler because his chief enemy was the original Stalinist. It’s bunk logic.
Anything good that anyone unjustifiably says about Palestininians helps to prolong the oppression some of their leaders commit. It doesn’t matter if what they say is true or false. Yeah, there are true things that one can say that make Palestinians look good. So what? There are equally true things you can say that make the Third Reich look good. It ended unemployment, advanced science, medicine and public health. It built a great network of roads. It was decades ahead in the war on cancer. So what? It was a racist aggressor that needed to be destroyed. Saying good things about it, even true things, only furthered its cause.
>Lastly, if you want to see IMC reflect justice, why don't you get involved?
I am involved. I’m the grand editor at SF-IMC. Over there we have the common human indecency not to provide a soapbox for anyone I disagree with and accordingly dub racist aggressors. That the editors of this site do, is elating. They aid and abet the staunchest enemies of all that the fake nessiesque Global Justice Movement stands for. They disgrace SF-IMC's honor.
Tolerance for Israel is tolerance for progress. It's moral. It squarely belongs on Indymedia, except in nessie's intolerant and immoral soapbox that encourages racist aggression and antiSemitism.
>Tolerance for Israel is tolerance for progress.
Do you feel that tolerance for the Intifada belongs on Indymedia as well?
> Nessie
Nessie is, well...Nessie. If you pull up with a cup of hot cocoa and think of England, he's not that bad. ;-)
Overall, it's very clear that there are a wide range of views about Israel and Palestine here, I'm just suggesting that keeping it down to a dull roar helps sort out the *news* from all the frothing and ranting. Play nice, ya know? We're not actually *in* Israel or Palestine, we're discussing a news item -- and while believe me I know very well how deep these issues go, what I'm suggesting is that the level of debate here isn't really helping anybody's goals.
And since Nessie is probably going to respond to this by calling me a provacateur or nazi: I'm in favor of Palestinian autonomy, and not in favor of the occupation. I'm also deeply critical of Israel as a nation state. Perhaps there's a way for Israel to exist and at least be like, I don't know...like Amsterdam. <g> But I don't see that coming any time soon. All of which is rather moot, since I'm anti-statist.
Do you feel that tolerance for the Intifada belongs on Indymedia as well?
> Nessie
Nessie is, well...Nessie. If you pull up with a cup of hot cocoa and think of England, he's not that bad. ;-)
Overall, it's very clear that there are a wide range of views about Israel and Palestine here, I'm just suggesting that keeping it down to a dull roar helps sort out the *news* from all the frothing and ranting. Play nice, ya know? We're not actually *in* Israel or Palestine, we're discussing a news item -- and while believe me I know very well how deep these issues go, what I'm suggesting is that the level of debate here isn't really helping anybody's goals.
And since Nessie is probably going to respond to this by calling me a provacateur or nazi: I'm in favor of Palestinian autonomy, and not in favor of the occupation. I'm also deeply critical of Israel as a nation state. Perhaps there's a way for Israel to exist and at least be like, I don't know...like Amsterdam. <g> But I don't see that coming any time soon. All of which is rather moot, since I'm anti-statist.
>Do you feel that tolerance for the Intifada belongs on Indymedia as well?
Of course I do, except for the brand that dips into antiSemitism or racism directed at any non-Palestinian.
>I'm just suggesting that keeping it down to a dull roar helps sort out the *news* from all the frothing and ranting. Play nice, ya know? We're not actually *in* Israel or Palestine, we're discussing a news item -- and while believe me I know very well how deep these issues go,
Seems like at least one of the contributors is posting from Israel. He/she may have a personal stake in or a burning feeling about some of the issues being discussed.
Of course I do, except for the brand that dips into antiSemitism or racism directed at any non-Palestinian.
>I'm just suggesting that keeping it down to a dull roar helps sort out the *news* from all the frothing and ranting. Play nice, ya know? We're not actually *in* Israel or Palestine, we're discussing a news item -- and while believe me I know very well how deep these issues go,
Seems like at least one of the contributors is posting from Israel. He/she may have a personal stake in or a burning feeling about some of the issues being discussed.
http://frontpagemag.com/
Well...I don't really see how you can argue for the trustworthiness of mainstream media, when you cite sources like this. To anybody who is reading this: go to the home page first to get a context, then read the article.
As to the article itself: first off, I don't trust the source who printed it, they're obviously a right wing source that enshrines Reagan, holds up David Horowitz, etc. They're neo-con, in other words -- hardly the most trustworthy grouping of politicos in this country. Why should I bother?
But if I was to bother...do I think the article's lying? On the basis of probability and given the source, yes, at least in part. In specific? Given that the article is conflating the deaths of civilians and soldiers, and then using facts (which I don't have a corroborating source for) to make a case that is hardly representative of the problem as a whole, I'm not sure, but I don't think it matters much. It's a hit piece designed to instill doubt in people's minds about the Israeli occupation -- I honestly don't think the author or the publishers really care about the dead on other side, they're just interested in their agenda. Further, given who is publishing it, having more than one source is doubly important. That's what I think, anyway.
Well...I don't really see how you can argue for the trustworthiness of mainstream media, when you cite sources like this. To anybody who is reading this: go to the home page first to get a context, then read the article.
As to the article itself: first off, I don't trust the source who printed it, they're obviously a right wing source that enshrines Reagan, holds up David Horowitz, etc. They're neo-con, in other words -- hardly the most trustworthy grouping of politicos in this country. Why should I bother?
But if I was to bother...do I think the article's lying? On the basis of probability and given the source, yes, at least in part. In specific? Given that the article is conflating the deaths of civilians and soldiers, and then using facts (which I don't have a corroborating source for) to make a case that is hardly representative of the problem as a whole, I'm not sure, but I don't think it matters much. It's a hit piece designed to instill doubt in people's minds about the Israeli occupation -- I honestly don't think the author or the publishers really care about the dead on other side, they're just interested in their agenda. Further, given who is publishing it, having more than one source is doubly important. That's what I think, anyway.
Truth is truth, either it is said by Agamenon or by his servant.
However, that information could be true. Why to close our eyes to that possibility?
I don't see the time stamps you're referring to.
"These people are employing a very old psy-war technique."
I start being suspicious that it's you the one employing that technique to have the people in favor of Israel banned.
I start being suspicious that it's you the one employing that technique to have the people in favor of Israel banned.
Supporters of a Jewish state no more belong on Indymedia than do supporters of an Aryan state. Racism is racism, no matter which race it is.
I support Israel's right to exist and am not racist. What does one thing to do with the other?
If you support the State of Israel, you are a racist by definition, because the existence of the State of Israel is predicated on a fundamentally racist concept, that control of land should be decided on the basis of ancestry. This is precisely and exactly the same principle upon which the Third Reich was founded. It's racist. It's evil. It doesn't belong on Indymedia.
I support Israel and the jews, so I am not racist. You want Israel to disappear and the Jews to be killed, same as Hitler.
And you use Goebbels propaganda techniques.
He's trying to change the subject again. He must take you all for fools. He apparently has so little respect for you that he thinks you aren't capable of seeing through his ruse. What arrogance. How typical. This is what Zionism is all about, the cynical manipulation of people they think of as fools. How long can we be expected to put up with treatment like this?
Anti-Zionist consider lying to be legitimate, at least when aimed to destroy Israel and the jews.
to make the racist oppressor state look bad. It does that fine, all by itself.
To support a Jewish state is no different than to support an Aryan state. The principle is exactly the same. It's evil for the exactly same reasones, and it must be destroyed for exactly the same reasons.
To support a Jewish state is no different than to support an Aryan state. The principle is exactly the same. It's evil for the exactly same reasones, and it must be destroyed for exactly the same reasons.
Who changed the subject?
The opening of one paragraph should be:
On SF-IMC last year you claimed you advocated for Israel to be dismantled peacefully in response to charges you were an extremist, your reasoning being a moderate could not espouse dismantling a state through violence.
On SF-IMC last year you claimed you advocated for Israel to be dismantled peacefully in response to charges you were an extremist, your reasoning being a moderate could not espouse dismantling a state through violence.
See how they are trying to confuse you, even about who is saying what? That is the Zionist way, to deceive you any way they can, and to steal. That’s what Zionists do. They lie and they steal. Don’t fall for it.
>For the second time in a row, I have seen you singling out support for a Jewish state,as being identical of support for an Aryan state. You didn't even say "a Zionist state".
That’s because “Jewish” and “Aryan” equate. They both describe ethnic groups. “Nazism” and Zionism” also equate. They describe political ideologies. To be a Jew is not necessarily to be a Zionist, for the same reason that to be an Aryan is not necessarily to be a Nazi.
To understand what is going on over there, we need to be very specific, and not confuse people with ideas.
A Jewish state and an Aryan state are both ethnic states. The only difference is the the ethnic group. The same goes for any ethnic state.
No, Jews do not have “right” to their own state, for the same reason that Aryans don’t. The whole idea is racist at its core.
>On SF-IMC last year you claimed you advocated for Israel do be dismantled peacefully in response to charges you were an extremist, your reasoning being an extremist could not espouse dismantling a state through violence. Now, however, you call for Israel's destruction.
(1.) Oh really? Cite the URL, so we can look at what I actually said. I don’t remember saying that, though I may have. I certainly don’t trust a pack of inveterate liars like the Zionists to “remember” for me. If a Zionist says the sky is blue, stick your head out the window and check. They can’t be trusted, not even a little.
(2.) I call for Israel’s destruction, peacefully if possible, violently if not. Either way, Israel must join the Third Reich on the rubbish heap of history. It’s a hideous, racist atrocity, and a constant threat to world peace. It must be destroyed, one way or the other, before Palestine can ever see peace and justice.
>For the second time in a row, I have seen you singling out support for a Jewish state,as being identical of support for an Aryan state. You didn't even say "a Zionist state".
That’s because “Jewish” and “Aryan” equate. They both describe ethnic groups. “Nazism” and Zionism” also equate. They describe political ideologies. To be a Jew is not necessarily to be a Zionist, for the same reason that to be an Aryan is not necessarily to be a Nazi.
To understand what is going on over there, we need to be very specific, and not confuse people with ideas.
A Jewish state and an Aryan state are both ethnic states. The only difference is the the ethnic group. The same goes for any ethnic state.
No, Jews do not have “right” to their own state, for the same reason that Aryans don’t. The whole idea is racist at its core.
>On SF-IMC last year you claimed you advocated for Israel do be dismantled peacefully in response to charges you were an extremist, your reasoning being an extremist could not espouse dismantling a state through violence. Now, however, you call for Israel's destruction.
(1.) Oh really? Cite the URL, so we can look at what I actually said. I don’t remember saying that, though I may have. I certainly don’t trust a pack of inveterate liars like the Zionists to “remember” for me. If a Zionist says the sky is blue, stick your head out the window and check. They can’t be trusted, not even a little.
(2.) I call for Israel’s destruction, peacefully if possible, violently if not. Either way, Israel must join the Third Reich on the rubbish heap of history. It’s a hideous, racist atrocity, and a constant threat to world peace. It must be destroyed, one way or the other, before Palestine can ever see peace and justice.
What do you mean?
More mindless contradiction, but not a refutation. There *is* no refutation. Ethnic cleansing cannot be defended, except with arms. Truth and logic are no help, nor are they forthcoming.
You are right. That why the Palestinian terrorists attack Israel aiming to make ethnic cleansing.
Another example of how nessie's harebrained historical analogies come from his lack of historical knowledge -- combined with a good slice of pure duplicity:
nessie-nym: "Tell that to a Czechoslovakian."
Once again "history buff" puts history through the nessifier, and it comes out mush.
If you could point me to the document in which the Slovakian Liberation Organization declared it their duty to destroy Bohemia and Moravia, or if you could show me some footage of Bohemian or Moravian cafes, buses, shopping malls destroyed by Slovakian "martyrs," then you might have at least a tiny chance of having your "Czechoslovakia" retort being anything but outright silly. I won't even demand that the evidence be after 1989.
What? You can't? Another one of your historical analogies explodes after two seconds of inspection? Not especially surprising.
@%<
nessie-nym: "Tell that to a Czechoslovakian."
Once again "history buff" puts history through the nessifier, and it comes out mush.
If you could point me to the document in which the Slovakian Liberation Organization declared it their duty to destroy Bohemia and Moravia, or if you could show me some footage of Bohemian or Moravian cafes, buses, shopping malls destroyed by Slovakian "martyrs," then you might have at least a tiny chance of having your "Czechoslovakia" retort being anything but outright silly. I won't even demand that the evidence be after 1989.
What? You can't? Another one of your historical analogies explodes after two seconds of inspection? Not especially surprising.
@%<
nessie-nym: "it's not about me."
translation: "uh-oh, I'm losing quite badly, and had better go into martyr mode. But first: take up this chant: supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. Supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. Supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. "
@%<
translation: "uh-oh, I'm losing quite badly, and had better go into martyr mode. But first: take up this chant: supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. Supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. Supporters of Israel aren't human. Demonize them. Never ever listen to one. They want to eat your babies. "
@%<
Aren't you tired of the same old crap? Don't you wish he'd actually address the topic for once?
Oh, right. Now i remember. There *is* not honest defense of ethnic cleansing. If there were, we'd be hearing it, instead of all these distractions. Oh well.
Oh, right. Now i remember. There *is* not honest defense of ethnic cleansing. If there were, we'd be hearing it, instead of all these distractions. Oh well.
Gehrig wants you to believe that the Peoples of the former Czechoslovakia are capable of treating each other like human beings, but the People's of Palestine are not. This is pure balderdash. The Peoples of Palestine are perfectly capable of treating each other as human beings, and they did, too, until the Zionists came along and started killing people. Before the Zionists came to Palestine, conflict there between Jews and non Jews was *extremely* rare. Now it's the norm. So we know where to place the blame. It belongs squarely on the shoulders of these racist, murdering thieves. They must be disarmed and their state must be dismantled. Then all Palestine can have peace and justice.
Peacefully co-existing with the Zionist entity is like peacefully co-existing with the Third Reich. It's immoral. It's impractical. it's a recipe for disaster. It only encourages them. It only puts off the inevitable. It makes us remiss in our duty to humanity to stamp out racist aggression wherever it rears its ugly head.
Israel has no right to exist. Destroy it now. Then Palestine has a chance for peace and justice.
But to let it continue to exist is like letting the Third Reich continue to exist. We tried that. It didn't work.
Israel has no right to exist. Destroy it now. Then Palestine has a chance for peace and justice.
But to let it continue to exist is like letting the Third Reich continue to exist. We tried that. It didn't work.
>>>"Peacefully co-existing with the Zionist entity is like peacefully co-existing with the Third Reich. Blah blah blah"<<<
It's not the "entity" they most peacefully co-exist with. It's the Israeli Jews, be they Zionist or otherwise. Cut the crap about the "Zionist entity".
>>>"blah blah blah blah "<<<
The usual nessiesque toy-soldier gobbledegook bravado.
It's not the "entity" they most peacefully co-exist with. It's the Israeli Jews, be they Zionist or otherwise. Cut the crap about the "Zionist entity".
>>>"blah blah blah blah "<<<
The usual nessiesque toy-soldier gobbledegook bravado.
The Zionist state cannot.
Germans can be co-existed with. The Third Reich could not.
Learn from the past. Destroy the racist state.
Germans can be co-existed with. The Third Reich could not.
Learn from the past. Destroy the racist state.
It will either be two states side-by-side west of the Jordan, or one state, perhaps completely egalitarian eventually, provided the Palestinians will be willing to except Israeli Jews as equals without qualifications. Your agenda is is meaningless.
The "Death to Zionism" lunatic above is obviously an antisemitic moron who isn't fooling anyone.
Go join hamas or something, you friggin maniac
Go join hamas or something, you friggin maniac
>That's what their mentors the Nazis said about the Third Reich.
Inflammatory and bunk statement.
>How long was *that* racist atrocity going to last?
Israel is no racist atrocity, except to lunatic fringe people off the deep end like you.
>Countries come and go.
States "come and go". Countries remain.
Inflammatory and bunk statement.
>How long was *that* racist atrocity going to last?
Israel is no racist atrocity, except to lunatic fringe people off the deep end like you.
>Countries come and go.
States "come and go". Countries remain.
trying to distract you from the topic and get you to think about "nessie," instead of the hideous, racist atrocity that is the Zionist entity. How typical. It just goes to prove that there *is* no honest defense of ethnic cleansing. If there were, he'd use it. But there isn't, so he does this instead. It's a typical Zionist trick. Don't fall for it. Stay focused.
THE PLO IN LEBANON
For Arab residents of south Lebanon, PLO rule was a nightmare. After the PLO was expelled from Jordan by King Hussein in 1970, many of its cadres went to Lebanon. The PLO seized whole areas of the country, where it brutalized the population and usurped Lebanese government authority.
On October 14, 1976, Lebanese Ambassador Edward Ghorra told the UN General Assembly the PLO was bringing ruin upon his country: “Palestinian elements belonging to various splinter organizations resorted to kidnaping Lebanese, and sometimes foreigners, holding them prisoners, questioning them, and even sometimes killing them.”6a
Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, not known for being sympathetic toward Israel, declared after touring south Lebanon and Beirut that the facts "tend to support Israel's claim that the PLO has become permeated by thugs and adventurers."6b
The columnists talked to a doctor whose farm had been taken over without compensation by the PLO, and turned into a military depot. "You ask how do we like the Israelis," he said. "Compared to the hell we have had in Lebanon, the Israelis are brothers." Other Lebanese — Christian and Muslim alike — gave similar accounts.
Countless Lebanese told harrowing tales of rape, mutilation and murders committed by PLO forces. The PLO "killed people and threw their corpses in the courtyards. Some of them were mutilated and their limbs were cut off. We did not go out for fear that we might end up like them," said two Arab women from Sidon. "We did not dare go to the beach, because they molested us, weapons in hand." The women spoke of an incident, which occurred shortly before the Israeli invasion, in which PLO men raped and murdered a woman, dumping her body near a famous statue. A picture of the victim's mangled corpse had been printed in a local newspaper.7
Dr. Khalil Torbey, a distinguished Lebanese surgeon, told an American journalist that he was "frequently called in the middle of the night to attend victims of PLO torture. I treated men whose testicles had been cut off in torture sessions. The victims, more often than not, were...Muslims. I saw men — live men — dragged through the streets by fast-moving cars to which they were tied by their feet."8
New York Times correspondent David Shipler visited Damour, a Christian village near Beirut, which had been occupied by the PLO since 1976, when Palestinians and Lebanese leftists sacked the city and massacred hundreds of its inhabitants. The PLO, Shipler wrote, had turned the town into a military base, "using its churches as strongholds and armories" (New York Times, June 21, 1982).
When the IDF drove the PLO out of Damour in June 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced that the town's Christian residents could come home and rebuild. Returning villagers found their former homes littered with spray-painted Palestinian nationalist slogans, Fatah literature and posters of Yasser Arafat. They told Shipler how happy they were that Israel had liberated them.9
IT WAS THE LEBANESE
The Lebanese Christian Phalangist militia was responsible for the massacres that occurred at the two Beirut-area refugee camps on September 16-17, 1982. Israeli troops allowed the Phalangists to enter Sabra and Shatila to root out terrorist cells believed located there. It had been estimated that there may have been up to 200 armed men in the camps working out of the countless bunkers built by the PLO over the years, and stocked with generous reserves of ammunition.15
When Israeli soldiers ordered the Phalangists out, they found hundreds dead (estimates range from 460 according to the Lebanese police, to 700-800 calculated by Israeli intelligence). The dead, according to the Lebanese account, included 35 women and children. The rest were men: Palestinians, Lebanese, Pakistanis, Iranians, Syrians and Algerians.16 The killings were perpetrated to avenge the murders of Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel and 25 of his followers, killed in a bomb attack earlier that week.17
Israel had allowed the Phalange to enter the camps as part of a plan to transfer authority to the Lebanese, and accepted responsibility for that decision. The Kahan Commission of Inquiry, formed by the Israeli government in response to public outrage and grief, found that Israel was indirectly responsible for not anticipating the possibility of Phalangist violence. Israel instituted the panel's recommendations, including the dismissal of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon and Gen. Raful Eitan, the Army Chief of Staff.
The Kahan Commission, declared former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, was "a great tribute to Israeli democracy....There are very few governments in the world that one can imagine making such a public investigation of such a difficult and shameful episode."18
Recently, efforts have been made in Belgium to try Sharon for his role in what happened in Lebanon. The appellate court there, however, threw out the case.[fn Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty, (June 26, 2002).] The European campaign appears designed to smear Israel in general, and Sharon in particular, and is particularly odious given that Israel's own democratic judicial institutions already dealt with this tragedy.
Ironically, while 300,000 Israelis demonstrated in Israel to protest the killings, little or no reaction occurred in the Arab world. Outside the Middle East, a major international outcry against Israel erupted over the massacres. The Phalangists, who perpetrated the crime, were spared the brunt of the condemnations for it.
By contrast, few voices were raised in May 1985, when Muslim militiamen attacked the Shatila and Burj-el Barajneh Palestinian refugee camps. According to UN officials, 635 were killed and 2,500 wounded. During a two-year battle between the Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia and the PLO, more than 2,000 people, including many civilians, were reportedly killed. No outcry was directed at the PLO or the Syrians and their allies over the slaughter. International reaction was also muted in October 1990 when Syrian forces overran Christian-controlled areas of Lebanon. In the eight-hour clash, 700 Christians were killed — the worst single battle of Lebanon's Civil War.19 These killings came on top of an estimated 95,000 deaths that had occurred during the civil war in Lebanon from 1975-1982.19a
So what? It doesn't excuse a single Zionist crime, or make boycott of Israel any less of a moral imperative. If “they do it, too” were a valid excuse, Hitler would be off the hook for killing those six million Jews because Stalin killed six million Ukrainians.
Why do you antizionists mind about no real atrocity and invent atrocities to charge Israel with them?
He's trying to personalize this, yet again. Don't fall for it. This isn;t about any one individual. It's about a racist, aggressor state. No amount of "aid" or any good deeds can erase its crimes. Address that.
Israel isn't a "racist aggressor" state. If it weren't for the racist crimes committed by the war loving Palestinian and Hizballah terrorists you abet on the web i.e. the real racist aggressors, it wouldn't be committing even one violation of int'l law against Arabs.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Gimme a break. That's totally absurd, and in direct opposition to the facts on the ground.
Israel was founded on the basic principle that Jews have more rights to land than do non Jews. It enforces this so-called "right" with military force. In short, it's a small time Third Reich. Death to Israel! Death to racism! Death to colonialism! Down with the Zionist entity. Up with a secular, egalitarian society.
Gimme a break. That's totally absurd, and in direct opposition to the facts on the ground.
Israel was founded on the basic principle that Jews have more rights to land than do non Jews. It enforces this so-called "right" with military force. In short, it's a small time Third Reich. Death to Israel! Death to racism! Death to colonialism! Down with the Zionist entity. Up with a secular, egalitarian society.
Israel isn't an aggressor state. It's reacting to aggresion which you're aiding and abetting ("You").
>>>"Israel was founded on the basic principle that Jews have more rights to land than do non Jews. It enforces this so-called "right" with military force. In short, it's a small time Third Reich."<<<
Only lunatic fringe extremeists and some uninformed people buy this warped hyperbolic Third Reich stuff.
>>>"Death to Israel! Death to racism! Death to colonialism! Down with the Zionist entity."<<<
Down with people who call to boycott a state that provides so much emergency aid to so many areas around the globe (the Nazis never did this) and makes many medical and other scientific breakthroughs that benefit humanity (the Nazis made fewer).
>>>"Israel was founded on the basic principle that Jews have more rights to land than do non Jews. It enforces this so-called "right" with military force. In short, it's a small time Third Reich."<<<
Only lunatic fringe extremeists and some uninformed people buy this warped hyperbolic Third Reich stuff.
>>>"Death to Israel! Death to racism! Death to colonialism! Down with the Zionist entity."<<<
Down with people who call to boycott a state that provides so much emergency aid to so many areas around the globe (the Nazis never did this) and makes many medical and other scientific breakthroughs that benefit humanity (the Nazis made fewer).
Once again he is trying to distract your attention from the crimes of the Zionists with yet another ad hominem.
> Only lunatic fringe extremeists and some uninformed people
An ad hominem is not a rebuttal. It's a trick. Don't fall for it.
> Only lunatic fringe extremeists and some uninformed people
An ad hominem is not a rebuttal. It's a trick. Don't fall for it.
That's all you've got to say? Looks like defeat; your Nazi comparison was flung back to you and you can't re-dish it it out with any credibility in here now.
Focus on how to stop their upcoming rally in Berkeley:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1711461_comment.php#1712374
Should blockaders link arms or should they lay down in the street?
http://www.indybay.org/news/2004/12/1711461_comment.php#1712374
Should blockaders link arms or should they lay down in the street?
Not all Israeli citizens are Jews: there are many Arabs.
What about the "Palestinian" and other Muslims who want to massacre Jews, Christians, Buddhist, Hindus, atheists, animists, etc.?
Who's racist?
It is how best to destroy the indefensible racist atrocity that is Zionism. Start at home. Defend Berkeley from their glorified cross burning on the 16th.
As long as Zionists plan to soil Berkeley's honor with their glorified cross burning, no one who lives there who has a shred of decency will focus on anything else. In only two weeks, Berkeley's hard won, decades old reputation for supporting justice and liberty will be directly attacked by a venomous pack of racist aggressors. If they are allowed to succeed, Berkeley will join Selma and Southie in the annals of racist infamy. If that happens, no honorable person will ever spend a one minute or one dime in Berkeley again. Berkeley wont deserve it.
The Zionists try to personalize this because they want to distract you from the truth about Zionism. It's a trick. Don't fall for it. This isn't about an one individual on either side. It’s not about me and it’s not about gehrig. It’s about you out there, all of you.
The Nazis of our age are slaughtering innocents and stealing land. Your choice is plain. You can help stop them, or you can try to appease their greed and blood lust by looking the other way while they drag your honor, Berkeley’s honor and America’s honor through the sewer of racist colonialism. Are you a modern Chamberlain, or have you the righteous honor to stand up to evil? It’s your choice. Make it wisely, because you are going to have to live with it.
The Nazis of our age are slaughtering innocents and stealing land. Your choice is plain. You can help stop them, or you can try to appease their greed and blood lust by looking the other way while they drag your honor, Berkeley’s honor and America’s honor through the sewer of racist colonialism. Are you a modern Chamberlain, or have you the righteous honor to stand up to evil? It’s your choice. Make it wisely, because you are going to have to live with it.
nessie: "The Zionists try to personalize this because they want to distract you from the truth about Zionism. "
translation: "Damn, they caught me again."
@%<
translation: "Damn, they caught me again."
@%<
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